Selecting Quality and Resource Use Measures: A Decision Guide for Community Quality Collaboratives

Selecting quality of care and resource use measures is an important and challenging task for organizations striving to improve the quality of health care in their communities. This Decision Guide is designed to inform readers about the most critical issues to consider when selecting and adopting such performance measures.

Part III: Introduction to Resource Use/Efficiency Measures

Question 15. What types of data are used to construct resource use measures? How is “cost” measured?

Question 16. What is known about the validity of available resource use measures, including their advantages and disadvantages?

Question 17. Which national groups are developing or endorsing resource use measures?

Question 18. How have resource use measures been used to compare providers to benchmarks?

Part IV: Selecting Quality and Resource Use Measures

Question 19. What national initiatives and forces are driving the standardization of quality measurement?

Question 20. How can the Institute of Medicine's six “quality domains,” the National Priorities Partnership's six National Priorities, and Donabedian's “structure, process, and outcome” typology be used to select appropriate measures of quality?

Question 21. What are the roles and responsibilities of the organizations that endorse or approve measures versus those organizations that develop measures?

Question 22. What criteria should we use when screening measures of quality for public reporting or other purposes

Question 23. Against which benchmarks should we measure our local performance

Question 24. When and how should providers review data before public reports are released?

Question 25. What are the critical success factors for selecting useful performance measures?

Part V: Interpreting Quality and Resource Use Measures

Question 26. How can quality and resource use measures be evaluated together to help identify high-value and low-value providers?

Acknowledgments

This Decision Guide is intended for use by community quality collaboratives interested in evaluating quality and resource use measures. The guide presents answers to 26 questions, identified in collaboration with representatives from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Chartered Value Exchanges.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the following people for reviewing a formative draft of this document:

William Encinosa, AHRQ, Michael Painter, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Nancy Brands Ward, Center for Health Improvement, and Nancy Wilson, AHRQ, provided targeted feedback. In addition, the authors extend their appreciation to Colleen Cameron, David Chin, and Tammy Gee, University of California, Davis; and Michele Peterson at the Center for Health Improvement for their valuable technical assistance.

Copyright Information

This document is in the public domain and may be used and reprinted without permission. AHRQ appreciates citation as to source. Suggested format follows:

Internet Citation: Selecting Quality and Resource Use Measures: A Decision Guide for Community Quality Collaboratives.
October 2014. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/quality-patient-safety/quality-resources/tools/perfmeasguide/index.html